A lot of people have told me over the years that they would create more if only they had time.

Since it’s my job to write and create, this is usually framed as “Hey, if I had your kind of time I’d write a lot too”

I’m guessing that many are now learning that this isn’t true.

If you always thought you would write a novel or pick up an instrument or start painting again if you just had the time but have found yourself completely unproductive now that you do, don’t worry; I’m not here to shame you.

I’m going to give you very good news about it.

You now know, empirically, that your problem wasn’t time.

What this means: you can stop lying to yourself about “having the time” to do something.

And now that this very powerful “time” lie is exposed, you can figure out what’s really holding you back.

Here are some spoilers:

Nothing outside of yourself is keeping you from creating.

The only thing that ever holds you back from creating is fear.

Fear always masks itself as something else.

You will always convince yourself that this “something else” is your real problem.

More spoilers:

You can spend years trying to fix this problem instead of creating.

You will never fix this problem, because it isn’t real.

No one can convince you that your pretend problem isn’t real.

It's a truth that must be realized on your own.

How? There are many ways.

One way is to expose the lie. “I’d do xyz if I had more time” is exposed when you have more time and do not do xyz.

But it’s not quite that simple.

Like a demon that jumps from host to host, fear will just jump to something else, and that will become your new problem.

“I don’t have time” will turn into a hundred other fake problems.

Fear is relentless. It doesn’t want you to change. Fear of change is billions of years of survival at work.

Change requires deep introspection and brutal self-honesty.

It takes courage to admit “Time was never my problem.” But once you do, you begin to see fear’s other masks.

“No one will like my work.”

“I just can’t pick an idea to pursue.”

“I like my idea but I’m not good enough to pull it off.”

“I’m not sure there’s a market for this.”

“I need to study craft more first.”

All forms of fear. All lies.

So then what? Simply don’t feel fear?

Of course not. Feeling fear is a normal human reaction.

You can’t make yourself not feel fear any more than you can make yourself not feel warm near a fire.

It’s a myth that successful creators don’t feel fear; they do. They just don’t let it control them.

That is 99% of what separates the successful from the unsuccessful.

The other 1% is talent.

So. Feel the fear. Acknowledge it. Ideally, even use it.

But always recognize it for what it is:

A lie.